Streets of Rage 4 Modernises the Beat 'Em Up Genre

In the latest behind-the-scenes video from Streets of Rage 4 co-developer, Lizardcube, we're shown how the studio is iterating on the original games' vision and creating a beat 'em up experience that isn't constrained by the computing limitations of the 90s.

Axel, Blaze and Adam are back after more than 25 real-world years, and while it's not been quite that long for them, the original Streets of Rage protagonists have still seen a good decade since their last in-universe outing. They're not the plucky youths of Streets of Rage 2: they've grown up, just like the kids who spent hours mashing away at their Mega Drive controllers decades ago. 

It seems they've aged like a fine wine too, with the pixel-art style of the originals being translated by Lizardcube into a style reminiscent of cinematic animation with "manga-like strokes". In the video, Art and Creative Director Ben Fiquet stresses that the studio hasn't tried to go against the art style of the original games, but rather tried to take it in a different direction while "still respecting the style, the colours (and) the characters".

The respect the folks at Dotemu, Lizardcube and Guard Crush Games have for the Streets of Rage series is plain to see from watching this new game in motion. It's hard to imagine a modernisation of the Beat 'Em Up looking so, well... modern while still staying mindful of the genre's roots. Care has been put into every minute detail; even homages to the original's design documents have been made, with cars crashing into the environment from off-screen —something that was planned, but impossible to implement with the Mega Drive's restricted hardware capabilities.

Streets of Rage 4 is due out 2020 for PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.